On supporting VoIP traffic in multi-hop IEEE 802.16 (d) mesh networks

The IEEE 802.16(d) mesh mode is proposed for the next generation wireless mesh network. It specifies two mechanisms to schedule data transmission, namely centralized scheduling and distributed scheduling. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of VoIP traffic over an IEEE 802.16(d) mesh network using the distributed scheduling. The problems of the system in supporting voice traffic are identified. To solve these problems, we propose a cycle-based scheduling (CBS) as an extension to the original standard to improve the QoS of VoIP traffic whilst increase the channel utilization of the network. Our preliminary simulation results show that CBS can greatly improve the QoS support of the IEEE 802.16(d) mesh mode for VoIP traffic.